The Family Gathering
by wolverinacullen
Summary: Daken, Kim and Maria come over to the Howlett mansion for a family barbeque. Maria has some fun with her cousins. What else could possibly go wrong..?


**The Family Gathering**

Daken, Kim and Maria had gotten picked up by Logan in one of the quinjets for the holiday barbeque.

"Who's going to be there?" Kim asked.

"The rest of the family and Nikki's sister with her family" Logan said.

"Oh joy" Daken said, rolling his eyes. Kim elbowed him softly.

"Don't worry, they're not as bad as they could be" Logan said.

The jet landed and Maria sprinted off, ever the little ball of energy, despite her broken arm, and ran around the side of the house.

Kim and Daken walked around with Logan, seeing Nikki hug Maria tightly before letting her go run off with the other four kids, Vincent, Tayla, Freddie and Jareth jr, the last two being Elie's twins.

Freddie's short ash blonde pigtails bounced against her cheeks, "What do you wanna do?"

"I dunno" her brother said.

"I wanna show Maria the fishies" Tayla said.

Maria grinned, "Fish? Where?"

"In the lake" Vincent said, "And you four better behave, because I'm stuck babysitting all of you."

Freddie beamed, "Water splashing!"

"No. You'll scare the fish" Vincent said, "Than Maria won't get to see them."

"Let's go!" Jareth jr cheered and ran down the steep hill, laughing as he fell and rolled the rest of the way.

Laura looked up from where she sat with a book in the tree, seeing the kids run and roll down the hill, and decided she really didn't want to know.

Vincent led them all to the small dock that had been built, it looked half like a pier, and leaned over.

"See? Fish" he said.

Maria leaned over, propping herself up on her good arm and looked in. There were an array of beautiful multicolored fish in the clear water.

"Wow" she whispered.

"I wanna go get my picture for Daken and Kim" Tayla pouted.

"I'll go with you!" Freddie said, and pulled the girl along.

"How old are they?" Maria asked Vincent.

"The twins are a little over a year old. Tayla's two and a half. She's pretty smart for a two year old, but man can she get hyper" Vincent said, dangling his bare feet in the water.

"How old are you?" Maria asked.

"Eleven" Vincent said, "Almost twelve."

Maria nodded, "What else is there around here besides fish."

Vincent laughed, "Animals, or things to do?"

"Animals" Maria asked.

"There's wolves, and deer, and chipmunks, and squirrels, stuff like that. Rabbits too" Vincent said, "There are a lot."

"Bunnies?" Maria asked.

"Yeah. Wanna go see some?" Jareth jr asked, "I found a whole nest of 'em!"

"Don't touch them though. They're too fragile when they're little to be manhandled by two hyper kids" Vincent said.

Maria nodded and Jareth jr reluctantly agreed.

At the house, Logan was cooking on the grill while Kim and Elie sat, talking. Elie's husband Jareth was reading a book, a pair of ancient looking bifocals perched on his nose. Daken looked at the sight, Elie was so...strange, wearing multicolored red, orange and green tights under a bright yellow sundress with white flowers running up the sides, her brown hair tied up in a high ponytail, yellow flip flop sandals on her feet. Jareth wore a loose white poet's shirt without his usual vest, and gray tights, a worn out pair of riding boots on his feet. His feathery blonde hair ruffled with the breeze.

"They're quite the pair, aren't they?" Nikki asked him, chuckling softly.

"How'd they end up together?" Daken asked.

"He saved her life once. Fell in love with her. She loved him, he came to help her again, and they ended up getting married and raising two little twin monsters. Because honestly, they can be the strangest little creatures sometimes" Nikki said.

"Daken! Kim! Look what I drew you!" Tayla beamed and proudly held up a very well done picture of Daken, Kim and Maria having a picnic.

Daken looked at the little girl who he'd known to be a very strange, very hyper little creature, and had yet done a drawing with colored pencil that was worthy of an art gallery.

Kim gasped, "It's beautiful Tayla!"

Tayla ran over and got a hug, followed by Daken, who laughed, "You're trying to be a genius, aren't you?"

Freddie laughed, "She's already smart."

"Where's Laura?" Elie asked.

"In a tree" Nikki replied, and sat down.

Daken sat down beside Kim. This was going surprisingly well. Tayla crawled onto Nikki's lap while Freddie crawled onto Jareth's, reading the book with him.

Jareth jr lead the group of three down the path toward the cabin his family lived in. When they saw the cabin Jareth jr lead them to the backyard, kneeling down in the grass by the side of a hole in the ground.

"I saw bunnies coming out of here today. Mommy picked one up and said if he came back we could feed him" Jareth jr explained.

"So...where are they?" Vincent asked.

"I dunno" Jareth jr said, "They were here this morning."

"I see one" Maria said, leaning down, "It's in there. It's hiding from something."

"Maybe we scared it" Jareth jr said.

Vincent grabbed the two of them and hauled them by their collars toward the cabin, "Get inside."

"Why? What's going on?" Maria asked.

"I hear big footsteps. Snuffling. There's a wendigo close" Vincent said and pushed them up the back steps. Sure enough, a large white animal that resembled half goat, half ape, came out of the trees and sniffed around the rabbit hole.

"Get inside" Vincent hissed quietly.

"I don't have the key" Jareth jr said, "Mommy has it."

The wendigo looked up, and Vincent pushed them both against the wall, "Just don't get scared."

"Too late" Maria whimpered.

The wendigo let out a fierce roar, and then Vincent gulped, "I have another idea."

"What?" Maria asked.

"Scream" Vincent said.

Nikki's head snapped up, away from where she was letting Tayla rest, and she froze.

"What?" Daken asked.

"Laura, come here" Nikki said, barely louder than her usual tone.

Laura hopped down from a nearby tree and jogged over.

"Take Tayla inside" Nikki said, handing her over.

"What's wrong?" Kim asked.

"Go inside, all of you" Nikki said.

"What the hell is going on?" Daken asked.

"There's a wendigo nearby" she said.

"A what?" Daken asked.

"A once human cannibalistic creature" Nikki said. Elie looked to Jareth, and he stood to take Freddie inside.

"Wait, where's Maria?" Kim asked.

Nikki listened, and heard them shouting.

Daken glanced at her, hearing what she was hearing, and they both took off sprinting.

Vincent backed Maria and Jareth jr flat against the door. The wendigo was starting to make its way up the back steps.

"Oh my god" Maria whimpered, hiding her face.

"We're gonna die, we're all gonna die!" Jareth jr whined.

"SOMEBODY! GET OVER HERE THE DAMN THING'S CRAWLING UP THE STEPS!!" Vincent shouted as loud as he could.

"Daken!" Maria shouted, seeing him.

"Go get them" Nikki said, "I'll handle this thing."

"How?" Daken asked.

"Just do it, argue with me later" Nikki said.

Daken nodded and went around, gripping the top of the stairs and pulling himself up, backflipping over.

Nikki stood behind it, growling. It turned, focusing it's attention on her. She met it's gaze, challenging it.

"Mom" Vincent said, "Come here, please."

"Vincent, I need you to go with your brother. It'll be fine" Nikki said.

"I can't leave you" Vincent said.

"You have to" Nikki said, "Vincent, look at me. Do this for me."

He nodded, and followed Daken down. Daken carried Maria and Jareth jr.

"Go" Nikki said softly. Daken started back toward the house, but Vincent hesitated.

"Vincent, go." Nikki said, making her voice more of a command.

He looked at her, scared, but ran after Daken.

Vincent ran, hearing the wendigo roar, and the sounds of claws tearing open flesh. He hoped it was his mother's claws killing the wendigo. He hoped she was okay. He wished he'd never left.

He saw Kim, holding Maria, and Elie and Jareth holding Freddie and Jareth jr. Daken held Kim and Maria both close. Vincent glanced back, hoping, wishing and praying with his heart and mind. He needed his mother to walk through into the yard. He needed her to.

The sounds of fighting stopped, and Vincent waited. Tayla was too young to understand why he stood there, eyes wide, panicking. Or why Laura waited just inside the window, watching.

He waited a minute. Then another. He counted to a hundred and twenty in his head, and turned back, "Where is she?"

Logan looked worried. So did everyone else. "Where is my mother?!" he shouted.

He turned back, looking. She still wasn't there. He turned and ran in the opposite direction. Daken stopped him, grabbing his arm. They didn't know yet.

Vincent struggled, tears pooling in his eyes, "No! Let me go! Just let me go dammit!"

"No" Daken said firmly.

Vincent clenched his jaw, falling to his knees, tears starting to drip out of his amber eyes, "I hate you. I hate all of you. You don't care at all, do you?!"

"We don't know what's going on. For all we know, she took the fight into the forest" Daken said.

"That's crap and you know it!" Vincent shouted. Kim moved from Maria's side to go to Vincent, prying Daken's hand from Vincent's arm, and hugged Vincent, "Shh, she'll be here soon. Don't worry. She's always been telling me about Daken being okay when he goes out, she always reassures me, so now I'm reassuring you. She'll be okay."

"I am okay" Nikki said. Her jeans were torn, her shirt a little bloody, "And Daken was right. I had to take that further away."

Vincent looked up and ran over to her, throwing his arms around her. He buried his face in his mother's shirt and cried.

"Don't" hiccup "Ever" sob "Do that" sniff "Again".

Nikki ran her fingers through his hair, "Be more careful then, okay?"

He nodded and she hugged him tightly, "Come on, we can still have fun today, right? Just ignore the fact that I had to kill something."

Vincent laughed and she wiped his eyes with the clean side of the end of her shirt. She smiled, "Come on."

And then, shockingly, the rest of the party went just as planned, with no crazy interruptions.

**The End**


End file.
